Working for government vs working for private enterprise?
Posted by E__Rock@reddit | sysadmin | View on Reddit | 43 comments
I was offered an interview for a local government sysadmin position. I currently am a sysadmin for a private enterprise company.
The job descriptions basically seem the same, except i would be employed by my state rather than a company. Can someone highlight some systems related or procedural differences between working for a private company vs. a local US county government position? Anyone out there made a similar jump?
llDemonll@reddit
Slower pace of work.
Usually more stringent budgets and old equipment.
Pension.
Healthcare is hit or miss.
Wages are usually lower if you’re already paid market rate.
Many holidays and usually stronger working hours (if your hours are 8-4, you work 8-4 then check out until 8 the next morning) in government.
223454@reddit
<you work 8-4 then check out
I used to work in gov. They told me during the interview it was 8-5, but then once I started I was told I was expected to work outside those hours whenever they needed me since I was salaried exempt. So that's not guaranteed. The only thing I can think to do would be to have a chat with a current employee to see what the culture is like.
churroattack@reddit
Gov salaried positions rarely work 40hr week... I worked a few sysadmin positions for 10+ years and was basically on call 365/24/7. Especially since most government organizations are under staffed.
Cheomesh@reddit
Yep, some of the gov guys I work with have done 0600-2100ish shifts lately.
Hothacon@reddit
Yeah, I'd walk out after email my resignation. Fuck that
Cheomesh@reddit
Yeah I can't say I'd blame you but at the same time it's not like they had a lot of options given what was going on. My contract didn't renew so I'm not sure what things are like there now though.
music2myear@reddit
Yea, I'm salary in gov, and the expectation is to work when there's work to be done, but there's a difference between emergency and regular work. Regular work starts and ends with the clock.
My current team has an on-call rotation and we each do 2 2-week periods on call each year.
This will vary based on the systems you run. Only a very small subset of our systems have 24/7 service expectations. I'm not going to get a callout for a bad password or the test server, or even most of the SQL servers, going down.
FatBook-Air@reddit
That's been my experience, too. In fact, at least on my experience, the work-life balance has been weaker in government than private. I learned the hard way that, in many respects, many of the stereotypes associated with government is probably more true with private companies. I didn't see many government workers not exceeding their paid hours.
E__Rock@reddit (OP)
Thanks for this. The solid working hours would be a welcome change. My 8-4 often turns into 7-8 and then a Saturday.
Pay seems like a lateral move for me and is about identical minus my bonus, so I would need to see if there is any flex of if they are giving the "our budget is our budget" excuse.
billh492@reddit
If the pay is the same then the benefits need to be looked at. I get 14 holidays.
I have been working in k12 since nov 2000 I leaving next month. But only because I am retiring.
SportsDrank@reddit
Do note that this is not applicable to all government orgs.
I worked 80+ hours on a project during the week before Christmas and it’s been consistent 50-60 hour weeks since. Since taking a senior position a year or so ago this has been pretty consistent based on our project load on top of simple ongoing maintenance.
Leaving work at work really isn’t a thing in our department. The work life balance is badly skewed. Do your research since, just like private sector, there’s some government orgs you should steer clear of.
Turdulator@reddit
Don’t forget also that the government is often using much older technology.
For example The federal government was using Internet Explorer for years and years after the private sector had moved on to modern technology
evantom34@reddit
These hit the nail on the head for me. Things move at a glacial pace and oftentimes funding is the bottleneck. We just recently moved off a handful of 2012 HyperV hosts.
Icy_Progress2786@reddit
This to a T.
Former government sysadmin here. Very stable. Good if you can handle routine and keep your nose clean.
iworkinITandlikeEDM@reddit
I work for my state government. Full remote.
People always say gov is old tech so I guess i lucked out? My gov job is full azure. We ditched all of our on prem stuff. We migrated off our legacy ticket system to service now. We have a huge project going on to move our mainframe to azure.
sryan2k1@reddit
You're going to get a lot of "Not my problem", limited career advancement and likely pretty shit pay compared to private with the trade off of being you can work there forever without putting in much effort.
For most of us that sounds like literal hell.
Solid_Ad9548@reddit
All depends on the org.
I am relatively new to the public sector world after 15+ years of ISP work. I make more now than I ever have before (~$200k base PLUS bonus), am fully remote, and get amazing healthcare + pension. But, I work for a very large entity with relatively decent funding and leadership that cares. Tradeoff is that there is lots of tech debt from before new leadership came in, lots of folks that won’t pull their weight and are just skating by til retirement, and the associated occasional fun surprise of “hey, I just took down the entire campus with 60k live users because of $skeleton”.
Nonaveragemonkey@reddit
I dunno, I make 10-20% more than most of my private industry colleagues at my same level, could be clearance though.
Nervous_Screen_8466@reddit
I have yet to see private meet my government salary potential.
No_Resolution_9252@reddit
local government is about as bad as it gets. As a new employee, your single purpose paying into the pension program will be to make the pension solvent for previous greedy generations that forced pension benefits up to similar levels and you will be left holding the bag in retirement. corruption is widespread and the people responsible for it will never be held accountable - that will be you. if you want a government job, try working at the state level, there is more accountability than in local government.
AsleepEntrepreneur5@reddit
Public is weird. But my experience is slow (union) job descriptions are never 100% what they are the roles are typically much different.
Benefits are amazing. Pension HRA VEBA (employer funded $200 a month) Health insurance is $200 flat for family of 4 457 3% employer contribution regardless of my contribution Flexible schedule (salary and truly flexible as in leave for an appointment and nobody bats an eye) My jobs is in a more rural area so my pay is about 10-15% above market because it’s hard to find talent locally COLA + Merit raises so like 4-6% YOY
jcwrks@reddit
Job security at local gov't is a perk. I work (in office) M-F 0600-1400 and get few calls after hours. Some calls/tickets I take care of, and others get delegated to the Jrs.
Work/Life balance is exceptional to what it was a decade ago.
However, if you get the job be prepared for a lackluster infrastructure. Hopefully there's meaningful documentation and people familiar with the existing setup.
CMDR_Kantaris@reddit
I'm going to retire with a pension and paid healthcare benefits. Not sure what other people do for health insurance after they stop working but I don't want to worry about it
Kuipyr@reddit
Nepotism is a real thing in government, especially in local government.
theoriginalharbinger@reddit
Local gov is not the same as state gov is not the same as fedgov.
Muni's are going to do everything from their own ground-up infrastructure (LAUSD) to potentially outsourcing tons of stuff to gov-specific MSP's. Muni's are sometimes nepotistic, will require you to do weird stuff due to a lack of hands, and so on.
Almost universally, your pay will be fixed according to seniority.
Beyond that, like, you need to explain what size of government and what role. There's not a lot of "general" info here - there are some muni's I would work for, some I would not. Some that I would enjoy, and some that I wouldn't. Some states are well-run, some states are constantly shaking the couch cushions to find funds.
E__Rock@reddit (OP)
These are solid points. It is indeed a local municipality, but it is odd because the job listing indicates for both the county and the state, but the job application is submitted to the state. Most likely they all use the same HR. I suppose I would need to clarify this in the interview if I would be a state employee or a municipal county employee.
VestibuleOfTheFutile@reddit
The size of the municipality can make a big difference too. Whether working in technology or otherwise, the city where I live is one of the most desirable employers.
But the city is about 1.7M people and has a decent budget. A municipality in the same region with 50K people is going to be a wildly different experience.
i-am-spotted@reddit
I recently moved from one of the top 50 companies globally to a county position recently. The quality of life improvement alone was worth it.
itskdog@reddit
Country not mentioned, so providing a UK perspective.
Working for one of the few remaining local-authority run state schools here (privatisation go brrr under previous Conservative govt), but while the pay is low, usually below inflation, the LGPS is a good pension scheme (based on your average earnings adjusted for inflation rather than explicitly on the amount you put in), there's job security as long as you're actually doing your job, you're more likely to try and be pushed out through office politics than fired, unless the school is too small and they move to an MSP (which by rights you should be eligible to have your employment transferred to the MSP on the same terms under TUPE, buying you time to find another job before the MSP find an excuse to lay you off)
jmeador42@reddit
Life is not as flashy and sexy in the public sector, but I sleep much better than my private sector counterparts at night.
Secret_Account07@reddit
Op can you share what state?
State employee here
E__Rock@reddit (OP)
Indiana
Library_IT_guy@reddit
Going to vary based on state and where in local gov. I'm a solo sysadmin in a public library which is technically a political subdivision, so not exactly local gov but... kind of local gov/close enough.
As others have said, it's a slower pace. Takes longer to get things approved and there's a process that you MUST respect or you will be in deep shit, because of auditing requirements for the finance people in local gov.
Lots of regulatory stuff that will vary depending on where you work.
You'll hold onto equipment longer and buy cheaper stuff. Lower budget. "Get by with less" attitude because it's taxpayer money... until it inconveniences your boss, then suddenly you have a budget for it.
Pay is less, but it's typically lower stress/workload, though you're often expected to be the end all know all IT god of the organization.
Great benefits and retirement.
Rarely ever work after your shift unless there's a serious emergency. When I clock out at 4 PM, I'm out. If I get called to do something because there's some emergency, I get comp time for that or overtime.
Co-workers are usually a lot nicer than those in private sector. Though that could just be a public library thing.
Lot of holidays which is nice.
ibahef@reddit
I used to work for a IT outsourcer that supported a major city. Here's what I saw:
If you were in the union, it was basically impossible for you to be fired. There were a few union IT guys I worked with, and they were... special.
The city I worked for had a great pension plan (2.5@55) so if you worked for 40 years, you basically got your full salary and it had a COLA. You could also retire when you hit 55, and take 2.5% of your highest quarter per year worked (this has changed to be a little more strict due to abuse). Also no Social Security (Not all govt. jobs are that way).
Better than average medical benefits for union folk.
Everything is MUCH slower, and a larger focus on using OpEX over CapEX. CapEX had to go to City Council when it was over a certain amount, OpEX was easier.
Depending on your department, your boss may know nothing about IT, as they are rotating through that position so they can advance (Police was this way).
IT Budgets SUCK in the gov space for most entities, and everything goes to the lowest bidder.
You will very likely make less. If you want to see what people in that job make, it's all public record. Search the web for it, and you will be able to see everything.
ibahef@reddit
I used to work for a IT outsourcer that supported a major city. Here's what I saw:
If you were in the union, it was basically impossible for you to be fired. There were a few union IT guys I worked with, and they were... special.
The city I worked for had a great pension plan (2.5@55) so if you worked for 40 years, you basically got your full salary and it had a COLA. You could also retire when you hit 55, and take 2.5% of your highest quarter per year worked (this has changed to be a little more strict due to abuse). Also no Social Security (Not all govt. jobs are that way).
Better than average medical benefits for union folk.
Everything is MUCH slower, and a larger focus on using OpEX over CapEX. CapEX had to go to City Council when it was over a certain amount, OpEX was easier.
Depending on your department, your boss may know nothing about IT, as they are rotating through that position so they can advance (Police was this way).
IT Budgets SUCK in the gov space for most entities, and everything goes to the lowest bidder.
You will very likely make less. If you want to see what people in that job make, it's all public record. Search the web for it, and you will be able to see everything.
JosephWithCOR@reddit
I made the move from private (never enough time to do anything right) to local city government (paid to watch paint dry). Benefits and retirement, a single client to focus on to hone my craft, access to resources I didn't know existed, and for the most part, get to set my own hours are the bonuses.
Biggest issues were wrapping my head around budgeting in March for an October Fiscal year and the glacial pace everything moves.
Good luck!
itmgr2024@reddit
lazy ass coworkers. inability to get shit done. total lack of empathy. lack of growth. not results oriented - more about politics. If you’re just looking for a paycheck and benefits fine. If you want to do a kickass job and get rewarded, not for you. did i mention lazy
RikiWardOG@reddit
Do you want money upfront where you're responsible for investing for retirement or crappie pay but a pension that basically secures some kind of retirment
PowerShellGenius@reddit
In my experience - you likely won't see the same pay you might in a good private sector job, but will be treated better, may be a union member depending on your area, and are likely to have higher job security. I'm public sector (school district) in the US and would not want to be private in this economy.
_thebryguy@reddit
Municipal IT here, can confirm this is all accurate.
Dave_A480@reddit
Former state employee....
Pay was noticably low.... But it was 2015 and I live near the state capitol....
Your job is always at risk due to political goings on with the budget - if there's a rough budget year they will cut IT staff.....
Change Avoidance instead of Change Management
Sam1070@reddit
I went private to fed and I enjoy it Stress is less and I have a way better work life balance
ImFromBosstown@reddit
I don't think you can accurately generalize this